Developer and Environmentalists Clash Over New Jersey Wetlands

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December 23, 1990, Page 001021Buy Reprints The New York Times Archives

From Dominick Alfieri's 15th-floor office, the vista is of suburban office towers, a modernistic hotel, a busy train station on the New York-Philadelphia line, and 55 acres of marsh and woodland. This little patch of wetlands forest -- hemmed now by suburban sprawl -- has been the site of a development versus conservation battle with national implications.

Mr. Alfieri, one of central New Jersey's busiest developers, wants to sink scores of concrete pillars into the wetlands, put a 6.5-acre platform on top of them, and build two 22-story office towers and a 250-room hotel atop the deck.

His dream left the environmental community with the nightmarish thought that builders around the country would try to skirt stiff rules against construction in wetlands by simply placing buildings on piles, above the water and land.

That fear has been eased by a change in policy by the Army Corps of Engineers. In March, the corps had told Mr. Alfieri, president of M. Alfieri Company, that it had no jurisdiction over developments built on pilings in wetlands.

Stunned environmentalists protested that pilings serve the functional equivalent of a solid foundation and thus are fill. They decried the ruling as a "loophole" that would encourage a stampede by developers into the nation's wetlands. A 'Relatively Undisturbed' Oasis

In response to the outcry, the corps announced this month that it will review such projects just like proposals to fill in wetlands. But the corps ruled that the change would not apply to Mr. Alfieri's project, a decision that has drawn the ire of national and state conservation groups and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"This is one of the last remaining tracts of forested wetland in central New Jersey," said Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff, head of the Federal environmental agency's regional office in Manhattan and a foe of the proposal by the M. Alfieri Company. "It is a relatively undisturbed wildlife oasis in a highly urbanized area. This is one case I feel very strongly about. It would be important not to let it happen."

Many New Jersey environmental groups are also opposed to the development, on the grounds that it would increase flooding, harm water quality and aquatic life in nearby streams and rivers, doom a resting grounds for warblers, tanagers and other migratory birds that spend winters in South America, and strip away still more open space needed to preserve healthy stream corridors in central New Jersey.

"In terms of protecting water quality and wildlife habitat in an area with precious little of it, this land has very special significance," said David F. Moore, executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. Company Denies Impact

Alfieri Company officials say that of the 55 acres, only six acres of trees will be cut down and three acres of vegetation will be doomed by shade from the project's platform, which will range from two to four feet above ground.

"Our project does not have any impact on wetlands," Mr. Alfieri said. "The water flows; the purification takes place; everything that's supposed to happen in wetlands happens."

The wetlands site is in a rapidly growing section of central New Jersey near the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 287, and about 12 miles from the Verra zano-Narrows Bridge.

"We're not opening up new frontiers," Mr. Alfieri said. "People are there and we're just fulfilling a need of giving them a place to work close to home."

The 55 acres is part of a state-owned complex for veterans. In 1983, the Alfieri Company gave the state a $750,000 down payment on a $7.5 million sales contract, which becomes final only if all necessary environmental permits are granted.

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The State Department of Environmental Protection has granted the project a stream encroachment permit, but the Rutgers University Environmental Law Clinic has filed a lawsuit to overturn it. Lengthy Review Process

Earlier this month, Mr. Sidamon-Eristoff, the regional E.P.A. chief, moved to block the project under a rarely used section of the Federal Clean Water Act that prohibits the placing of traditional fill material like stones nd soil in wetlands during construction. But before it can impose any construction ban, the Environmental Protection Agency must conduct a lengthy review and hold public hearings on the environmental value of the wetlands and any potential harm from any fill.

Mr. Sidamon-Eristoff acted as the Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates wetlands development with the Environmental Protection Agency, toughened its policy on pile-supported projects in wetlands, but exempted the proposed Alfieri project from the new rules, on the ground that the corps had told the company last March that it had no jurisidiction over its proposal.

Environmentalists and the Federal environmental agency both condemned the corps' March ruling as a misreading of the Clean Water Act and the law's prohibiting the filling of wetlands. Weeks of negotiations between the Environmental Protection Agency and the corps produced the corps' stricter policy on pile-supported structures, which was announced on Dec. 14. But the environmental agency's request to apply the policy retroactively against Mr. Alfieri was rejected, prompting Mr. Sidamon-Eristoff to fight on alone.

In its March decision, the corps held that pilings were not fill material and that the Alfieri project did not require a corps review or a permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. 'Stringent Review' for Pilings

In the revision, the corps asserted that it has regulatory jurisdiction where pilings are to be used as a substitute for a solid foundation for offices, parking garages, restaurants, stores, hotels, and apartment houses. Henceforth, such proposed projects will require a review by the corps and a Section 404 permit.

"All it means is that pilings will be regulated under the Clean Water Act," said Joseph J. Seebode, chief of the regulatory branch of the corps' New York office. "It certainly does not prohibit pilings. It will place them under stringent review."

Besides the Alfieri project, the new policy exempted any developer of a proposed pile-supported project who has "committed substantial resources to the degree that it would be unreasonable and inequitable" for the corps to assert its jurisidiction now.

There are only two such projects in the New York region, corps officials said. One is Allied Junction, a proposed complex of six 30-story offices and a major rail transfer station on an 11-acre site in the Hackensack River in Secaucus, near the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The other is River Walk, a proposed high-rise apartment complex on a 17-acre deck over the East River near 23d Street in Manhattan. Concern Over Exemptions

Environmentalists, including officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, say they are generally pleased with the corps' new oversight. But they remain disturbed about the provision for exemptions.

"We're concerned about the grandfathering language," said James Marshall, a spokesman for agency's New York office. "We'll be watching closely to see it's not misapplied."

D. Douglas Hopkins, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said: "Grandfathering in the Alfieri project is outrageous. It's not justified under the law."

A version of this article appears in print on December 23, 1990, on Page 1001021 of the National edition with the headline: Developer and Environmentalists Clash Over New Jersey Wetlands. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe